Risky drivers more likely to die: study

Drivers with demerit points or traffic convictions are more likely to be seriously injured or killed in a road accident, West Australian research says.

A study of patients admitted to the State Trauma Centre between 1998 and 2013 has found the more traffic offences someone has, the greater the risk they will die or be maimed in a crash.

Offenders who had been convicted of drink-driving, not wearing a seat belt or using a handheld electronic device were especially more likely to end up in intensive care or dead.

For example, a patient with three drink-driving offences had an 80 per cent or more chance of ending up in hospital after an accident compared to a 3.8 per cent risk faced by someone with no prior convictions.

Men were also more likely to be in an accident, making up 78 per cent of all patients admitted.

Lead researcher Kwok Ho said the most surprising result of the study was some people would reoffend despite their traumatic experience.

"People seemed to learn if they were really close to dying," Dr Ho told AAP.

"But the mildly injured, they might think they can get away from it and those people don't learn."

Dr Ho said the median time between a patient's last traffic offence and their accident was 11 months, which could be a window of opportunity to save lives.

He said road safety programs should target people who have accumulated a high number of traffic convictions, especially drink driving and seat belt offences, and road trauma patients before they are discharged from hospital.

The study says preventing road injuries and death with simple injury awareness programs could be much cheaper than treating road trauma patients, which costs an estimated $22,217 per serious injury.